Syrie James’ “The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen” was selected by Library Journal as Best First Novel of 2008.

Talks are underway to turn her most recent work, “The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte,” into a movie.

Given those developments, it would be hard to dispute that the Mar Vista author is a literary success.

Albeit, perhaps an unlikely one.

James began writing after she was faced with having to relocate from Southern California to Texas for her husband’s work. Reluctant to leave town, James said, she convinced her husband that she was going to become a screenwriter. And for that to happen, she would need to stay in the Los Angeles area.

Problem was, she knew nothing about screenwriting. So she quickly taught herself – and ended up selling 19 screenplays.

“(My husband) always believed that I had talent and that I could achieve anything I chose to achieve,” James said. “The stories come from everywhere and from every part of my life.”

James said she enjoyed writing screenplays, but dreamed of being the screenwriter of a produced feature film. Part of her problem, she said, was in the stories she wanted to write, mostly about 19th century British authors.

“All the stories I was proposing were historical biographies, and Hollywood doesn’t do many of those,” she said.

So, James transitioned to novel writing, a platform from which she could explore the genre she loves, beginning with “The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen.”

A longtime fan of Austen and her writing, James was inspired by the Oscar-winning “Shakespeare in Love” to create a similar story – telling the fictional tale of the man with whom James envisioned Austen falling in love.

Armed with copious research, James weaved together the factual details of Austen’s life with the fictional romance she imagined would have inspired Austen’s work.

James said the biggest challenge was to sound enough like Austen in style and diction for readers to feel as if they were actually reading Austen’s memoirs, a feat critics and readers say she achieved.

Next, James tackled the subject of Charlotte Bronte, author of “Jane Eyre.”

James said she knew little about Bronte going in, but after reading an extensive Bronte family biography, she said, “I fell in love with their story and I knew I had to tell it.”

James spent almost two years researching and writing “The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte,” including repetitively perusing a volume of Bront ‘s more than 500 correspondences.

During her research, James discovered it was unnecessary to create a love affair for Bronte, as her turbulent romance with neighbor Arthur Bell Nicholls provided plenty of material to work with.

After seeing each other daily for more than seven years, Nicholls proposed to Bronte. In a letter to her best friend, Bront recounted the drama of hearing Nicholls reveal his feelings to her.

“That had to be an incredible moment,” James said. “When I got to the place in my book where I had to write it and put the words in Mr. Nicholls’ mouth – finally getting to pour forth in anguish how much he adores her – that was fun.”

Now that she’s enmeshed in it, James said she enjoys the process of writing period novels – from the research, to the story outline, to ensuring the language is appropriate for the era. She said she especially enjoys creating dialogue between characters.

“It’s so much fun because I feel like I’m taking dictation from the universe,” James said. “I do so much in-depth research that I know these characters really well before I begin writing anything. So when it comes to having them in a scene talking to each other I just let it flow.”

She gets to know the characters so well, James said, that it becomes hard to let them go once a book is finished. After the final words are written, she said, it’s difficult to move on to the next novel.

James is now working on “Dracula, My Love: The Secret Memoirs of Mina Harker,” a reinterpretation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” from the heroine’s point of view.

With this book, James said, she hopes to continue the message presented to readers in her previous novels.

“These women, just by doing what they loved most, made such an impact on the world,” James said. “I would like to think that could give hope and inspire others to follow their own dreams, because I really believe that if you find out what you’re good at and you pursue that to the best of your ability you will succeed.”